Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly didn't want to run for a second term. She did it anyway.
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Laura Kelly, current governor and a former state senator, is about six months away from the finish line. This is the end of essentially a quarter century invested in Kansas politics. So much has transpired since November 6, 2018, when the Democrat earned 48% of the vote to defeat well-known Republican nominee Chris Kobach, who topped out at 43%. On November 8, 2022, she improved at the ballot box. By gathering 49.5% of the votes against 47.3% by GOP Attorney General Derek Schmidt. Here with us today is Governor Kelly, who agreed to take a look back in the years since she was sworn into office in 2019 and to turn her attention also to the future. I'm Tim Carpenter, a reporter at Kansas Reflector. Welcome, Governor, to the podcast.
Good to be here with you.
So the first thing I want to do is try to dip a finger into the two gubernatorial campaigns uh for a second. Uh you defeated prominent Republicans in both of these and in a state that President Donald Trump keeps carrying. Uh so uh Both these candidates both these campaigns are independent candidates in the mix. How did you look at those races when you tried to sort out uh how you would uh go about winning?
Well, I think it's important to remember, Tim, that I had absolutely no interest in running for governor in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen. Uh I really had to be talked into it. Uh and And the reason I finally agreed um was because uh as many people know I'm Irish Catholic, uh so I've got a double dose of guilt. And um, you know, I'm also not a native Canton. Uh I moved here forty years ago and Uh Kansas has just been so good to me and so good to my kids uh that in 2017 when it became apparent uh that the Democrats really did not have anybody uh in the race uh who could win a primary and then turn around and have any chance at winning in a general election. Uh and so it really was uh a sense of obligation I had, uh, because if I had not done it, uh then Chris Kobach would have been our governor.
Uh and Kansas was in a world of hurt. uh and uh it needed to get better. It needed to be fixed and uh I knew that um Chris Kobach would not be the one who would do that. Uh and so I agreed to run at that particular point. Um You know, in terms of how I looked at it, how you know, figuring how am I gonna win, I knew it was gonna be tough. I mean, uh we're talking about somebody who had incredible name recognition. Uh not to mention that, you know, uh Well, I don't think of Kansas as a really red state, you know, knowing the people as well as I do, uh, you know, it's it's a purple state at best, uh, but elect in elected politics it does tend to to lean red. And so I knew it would be tough. Uh be tough in eighteen and then it was gonna be tough again, uh, in twenty two when I'm running against um a twelve year attorney general, uh, you know, with Senate experience.
Uh so Uh but by that point, um, you know, it was less um rescuing Kansas um and feeling obligated to do it uh than knowing that by that time we had really been able to turn Kansas around and I wanted to keep it on track uh and knew that we'd need at least another four years uh to cement in some things uh we'd been able to get done.
I think it would help if you would just kind of touch on your perspective of the landscape that you're entering in the governor's office after seven years of Governor Sam Brown back and about a year of Governor Jeff Collier, because that will help us understand some of the changes that you uh endorsed and worked on in the subsequent years.
Well, I think if if people think back to those times, you know, we had the the great tax experiment of twenty twelve and twenty thirteen. uh when with the uh you know drawing of the ink on that bill Uh Kansas plummeted uh in terms of our revenues. I mean I think uh it was forecast we knew that if if Sam Brownbach signed that bill, uh, that within three years we're gonna be one point two billion dollars underwater. Uh and indeed that's exactly what happened. Um, you know, it started off at about a half a billion under and then continued to uh uh to decrease uh quite significantly.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–6:32
2
Why did Laura Kelly decide to run for governor despite initial reluctance?
6:32–21:37
3
What challenges did Governor Kelly inherit from the previous administrations?
21:37–38:16
4
How did Kelly’s administration address Kansas’s fiscal crisis and debt?
38:16–39:35
5
What economic development initiatives did Kelly prioritize to boost Kansas’s economy?
39:35–44:14
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Kansas Reflector Podcast
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